by Jianne Carlo
Her thighs fastened around his head and he gorged on her, swived her with his finger, lapped and nipped remorselessly, until her muscles clamped around him, and she bowed off the bed and keened.
At first the slight, strangled sound didn’t penetrate the desire fogging his mind. Then it did. Not wanting to jerk her out of her ecstasy, he forced himself to withdraw his face in slow increments from her quivering puss.
In the quiet of the room, he heard the last trails of the weak noise coming from her throat. She had a white-knuckled grip on the scattered bed linens and dropped her head to one side, eyes closed, lips parted.
Dráddør realized Xára had been so lost in rapture she was not aware of her faint mewls. She was capable of sound. Mayhap of speech.
Hope thundered a tattoo against his ribs.
* * *
Something tickled the tip of Xára’s nostrils. She snuggled away the irritation by wrinkling her upper lip. Another tickle. She knuckled the spot. When the itch persisted, she blinked, and peered from under hooded lids. A swirl of curly hair the hue of a deep, golden sunset came into focus, then her fingers resting near a dark flat-tipped nipple, and, when her blurred vision cleared, a massive, sinewy arm.
Reality crashed away the remnants of her sleep-fuzziness.
The Viking. The consummation.
Kissing.
His mouth on her breasts. His head between her thighs.
An inferno swept from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair. She jerked upright.
Stared at the lazy half-smile dimpling Dráddør’s bronzed cheeks.
Had it all happened?
A thunderstorm of epic proportions burst around her.
The amused expression on Dráddør’s face vanished. He picked her up and set her to one side. “Stay.”
She rubbed her eyes.
“Dráddør!”
The pounding came from the barred door. She recognized the voice as that of Earl Tighe. What was wrong?
“Dráddør!” Tighe shouted and hammered on the door. “The wind has picked up.”
The Viking bounded off the bed. “I will be but a moment.”
Bemused she followed the bunching of his arse cheeks as he walked.
After removing the bar, he opened the door a crack. “How close?”
“Before the midday,” Tighe answered.
Had the warriors taken leave of their senses?
“’Tis more of a reprieve than I had hoped for. Await me.” The door thudded shut.
Xára must have looked as bewildered as she felt for he said, “Yester eve, we spied two ships on the horizon. They were becalmed. The wind has returned.”
Néill and Godfraid? So soon? Stunned, she leaned on one hand and followed him as he gathered weapons, boots, and garments swiftly and efficiently.
“Know you the state of the castle’s food stores?” He shrugged on his tunic. “Yay or nay, Xára. Quickly, we have little time.”
Food? He feared a siege?
She waved her hands in an I-do-not-know gesture.
“Find out. Also the state of the wells, fresh springs, all sources of water. Do you understand?” He strapped on his sword belt.
Her stare was glued to his mouth and she kept nodding repeatedly.
“Are there secret passages in the cliffs? Does Néill know of them?” He laced his boots and strapped a dagger to each calf.
While he had been engrossed in dressing and arming himself, Xára had recovered enough to begin donning her own garments. Garbed in the torn chemise, she collected her garters, stockings, and cyrtel.
“Xára, come to me. Write.” His sharp tone focused her scattered wits.
She hurried to him and traced, Aye. Many. Néill knows. Liam knows.
He gave her a brusque nod. “Aside from Liam, who has knowledge of the castle’s defenses?”
She did. Jennie. Her throat worked and she clenched her fists. So did Magnhildur. But it mattered not this morn. Magnhildur was long gone from Caithness.
Dráddør opened the door, nodded to Tighe, and glanced over his shoulder at Xára who shook her head.
“The ships will be in the bay soon.” Tighe handed Dráddør a crossbow. “I have fires lit on the battlements and oil cauldrons are a-boiling. I sent out spies before the vow saying. A large force approaches from the East.”
Alarm coursed through her. Two forces, one from the sea, and one from land?
“We have no time to loiter.” He turned back to her. “Xára, Egron is charged with your safety, that of the women and children, and the rest of the keep. Obey his commands. I take my leave of you now, wife.”
With those last words, Dráddør banged the door shut.
It took a few moments before her muddled thoughts cleared. There was much to be done. She knew naught of sieges or battles. Who could aid her? Jennie could, but she was on her deathbed.
Jennie. Had she survived the night?
Guilt assailed her. While she had been finding carnal pleasure Jennie lay dying in the room down the hallway. The image of Dráddør’s head 2tween her thighs and the memory of his tongue had her nipples tingling. Nay. She would set him out of her mind. ’Twas no time for fickle, wicked thoughts.
Xára finished dressing and ran to check on Jennie.
The healer, Lara, signaled Xára to be quiet and pointed to the sleeping form in the bed.
Jennie lived.
Xára locked out her wobbly knees.
“She slept fitfully, my lady. When she wakes, I will see if she will sip some honeyed herb tea. If she can keep that down, we have a chance. I have ne’er seen anyone survive this long after such a powerful belladonna dose. Have no fear, I will send for you immediately the moment her eyes open.”
Arnfinn had banned Lara from the castle after Evie’s birth, but her skills had been much in demand in this remote land, and mercifully for Jennie, the village on Myrtle Harbor had given her shelter.
“My thanks,” Xára mouthed and then hurried down to the kitchens.
She could not get over how gentle he had been with her. The tender consideration evident in the way he sought to reassure her about the consummation. Having lived most of her life in an abbey surrounded by women, Xára’s knowledge of men was limited to those she’d met since she’d returned home. Neither Néill, nor Arnfinn, had ever exhibited any sign of compassionate or moderate behavior. Dared she hope Dráddør’s kindness would continue? Or was his consideration a false front like Néill’s initial polite wooing of her?
To be cert, he had handled her with not a trace of roughness or impatience. Recalling the bruises left on her breasts and neck from Néill’s mauling, she shuddered, and hugged her arms.
Where were Evie and Ulna?
Both Néill and Godfraid coveted Xára, but Evie was an even bigger prize for the two power hungry warlords, once they had learned the truth of her sister’s birth. First, she must needs assess the situation. Then, if ’twas disastrous, she would send Evie to the safety of the secret passage known only to those shown by Gná, the messenger of both Norse and Celtic gods and goddesses. Magnhildur’s prediction would not come to pass. Even if it meant her death, Xára would never allow Godfraid to take Evie’s maidenhood.
She found the two females in the far corner of the kitchen near the doorway leading to the herb gardens. Resolving to be calm and not allow any concern to show, Xára greeted the cook and butcher with a smile, and threaded her way through the dozen women, girls, and young boys milling about the roomy chamber.
Evie squealed when she spied Xára and bounded off the bench, spilling her bowl of fruit. The little girl squatted, scrambled a handful of berries into her stained skirts, bunched the hem, and then straightened. She skipped across the chamber all the while popping fruit into her blue-stained mouth.
“You are the Viking’s wife now, nay?” Evie beamed a wide smile up at Xára. She hopped from one foot to the other. “Will you have a bairn now?”
Xára tousled her sister’s silver-streaked hair. The
girl was obsessed with bairns and had long yearned for a wee sister or brother.
“Dinna be bothering yer sister with all sorts of foolish questions.” Ulna waddled to stand behind Evie. She cocked her head and asked, “And was the doing as bad as ye thought ’twould be?”
Xára met her old nurse’s concerned gaze and shook her head.
“The brute treated ye with care?”
Aye, she mouthed. Great care.
Ulna harrumphed. “’Tis no way to take a well-born maid. With all those Norse heathens watching ye. Ye hold yer head high, my lady. We are all proud of ye.”
Xára grinned and hugged Ulna’s copious girth. The woman stood two heads shorter and mayhap three arses wider than Xára, but yet moved nimbly when necessary.
She signaled for Evie and Ulna to follow her and strode to the narrow hallway leading to the north tower. Picking up her pace, she darted into the room used to dry herbs and grind spices. Going directly to a bowl within which lay several pieces of charcoal, she picked one, and went to the whitewashed table in the corner. Magnhildur?
Evie read her question to Ulna who had never been able to acquire the skill.
“None has seen her ugly hide. She be a-brewing her mischief in the isles near Touft Abbey according to the gossip in the stables last eve.” Ulna jammed pudgy hands onto ample hips. She tapped her foot and waited.
“Galdan the Tracker spoke her name yester eve.” Evie piped up.
Xára frowned, then scribbled.
“Who did he speak with? I do not know the man, but Galdan called him my lord. He did not look like a lord. His tunic was stained and had holes, and he spoke in a strange manner,” Evie replied. But the girl’s gaze skipped all around the chamber, a certain sign of guilt.
Where were you?
“Be that what ye were doing in the middle of the night?” Ulna grasped Evie’s arm and gave her a sound shake. “Where did ye go to?”
Evie jerked out of the nurse’s hold. “I cannot sleep when you snore the walls off the keep. I went to the stables.”
Xára sighed. The stables were built into a cliff and contained a hidden passage large enough to transport the horses to the safety of a field in case of invasion.
“Ye went for a gallop, didn’t ye?” Ulna groaned out the words.
“I had to go. I had to. I had to find a fairy hill.” The little girl plucked at Xára’s sleeve. “I cast a spell for Mama at the crest of dawn on a fairy hill.”
Xára set two fingers to Evie’s lips and mouthed, Nay.
Evie folded her arms and jutted her mouth to a full pout. “I am a good seidr. Not an evil one like Magnhildur. Why can I not use my magik to help Mama? She hurts so, sister.”
Her sister had the ability to cast spells and curses, but not the knowledge of the ancient rituals required to make them successful. Evie had only recently come into her powers and had no mentor save auld Bessie. What Bessie remembered and what she fancied in her advanced age, however, oft became intertwined, and both Ulna and Xára frowned on Evie’s obsession with the woman.
Gathering Evie close, Xára kissed her temple, and drew back to shake her head.
Furious tears leaked from Evie’s eyes, she wriggled out of Xára’s arms, and stamped a foot. “The highlander, Earl Tighe, said Lady Jennie would breathe her last before dawn. I will not let Mama die. I am the daughter of the sun god, Ard Greimme, half-sister to the warrioresses Aife and Scathach—”
“Hush, wee bairn.” Ulna clasped Evie to her bounteous bosom. “I will forgive ye this once for speaking the forbidden. Ye are overwrought. And yer sister right in front of ye is who yer mam chose to care for ye. All will be well.”
Xára met Ulna’s watery blue eyes above the little girl’s head. Evie had both hands fisted and was snuffling into Ulna’s chest.
Deciding not to leave Evie’s safety to chance or the Viking’s protection, she wrote. I command you both to the cave. Stay until I come for you.
Xára expected Evie’s truculence, but though the girl scowled she translated the order.
“Why must I go? I can stay and help you,” Evie protested.
Xára fixed a do-as-I-say glare on her sister.
“What will you do?” Evie asked.
She scrawled, ’Tis your duty to obey without question.
“Ye go milady and do what ye must. I’ll take the wee one to the cave and we’ll wait there for ye.” Ulna lifted Evie’s face and thumbed dry the tears streaked on her cheeks. The berry smudges spread like a faint blue spidery web across the girl’s face. “Come with me little warrioress. We have a ways to go.”
The herbarium was the center of a network of tunnels. The room had an arched doorway connecting it to the hallway leading to the kitchens. A smaller, narrow door concealed by a hollow armoire led to a dark corridor from which there were several means of escape into the bailey. The large drying table along the wall built against the cliff hid another secret exit fit only for crawling on hands and knees. The walls adjacent to the drying table led to the south and north towers respectively. Caves and secret passageways riddled not only the cliffs on which Castle Lathairn stood, but the whole length of the coastline clear down to the settlement of Myrtle Harbor.
Xára waited until Ulna and Evie exited via the armoire.
First, she wanted to determine the position of the ships the Viking had spied the day before. Xára quickly pressed the bricks that unlatched the third passageway. She climbed the narrow, curved steps, leading to the roof of the north tower.
The narrow ring surrounding the pointed gable was inaccessible except by this hidden path. While she could step through the doorway without any issue, a normal size warrior would have to turn sideways to do so.
A series of arrow slits ran the length of the outer wall.
The fierce wind blowing off the north seas whistled their wintry dominance. Xára hugged her arms. The whirlwind breezes crisscrossed the narrow space, tore tears from her eyes, and whipped her loose locks in blinding fury against her cheeks.
She caught a fistful of hair and peered to the horizon. A storm brewed. Smoky thunderclouds raced across the sky. Navy, swelling waves crashed the rocky bay below. A ship’s prow came into sight 2tween the two boulders guarding the narrow entrance to the cove.
Xára’s knees wobbled. She grabbed onto the rough stone of an arrow slit to remain standing. Had Néill returned with Godfraid’s formidable army?
Chapter Four
Dráddør and Tighe stood side-by-side in the center of the cove fronting the base of Lathairn’s cliffs. The morn had dawned with the bleakness of the coming storm.
Tighe grunted. “The men are grumbling.”
“Aye. They’ve been spoiling for battle for the last few days.” When Tighe and Dráddør had left Dalriada not five days ago, they both had anticipated either a swift, bloody attack or a prolonged siege. Either way, battle fever had their warriors on edge and, since Dráddør had forbidden swiving until he was assured the castle and lands secured, the men had not been able to appease their pent-up tension.
Dráddør had recognized the langskips sailing toward Lathairn as his brother’s even before he crested the peak of the lookout mound. To his men’s disappointment, he’d curtailed all the frenzied preparations for a possible invasion. To counteract the warriors’ growing restlessness, he’d ordered a score of men to the hunt and assigned the rest to cleaning the castle and whitewashing the walls. They were piddling chores to be cert and while his commands spawned grouses and complaints; they also kept idle hands busy and prevented scores of fights 2tween the Viking soldiers and Arnfinn’s ragged bunch of mercenaries and men-at-arms.
“Think you war is brewing and Harald Bluetooth calls you to arms?” Tighe, not one to stand idle for long, whittled a piece of driftwood he’d found on the rocks.
“Why else would Konáll bring an extra langskip?” Dráddør could not afford to leave Lathairn until the castle was secured and Xára full with child. Even then, ’twould be a grievous risk to go to
war for winter was setting in. “Loki’s prick be severed. I need not this now.”
The tall cliffs separating the castle from the bay cast deep shadows over most of the rocky beach. Konáll’s langskip, Dauði Dkellr, named for his axe, Death Blow, sailed through the entrance to the bay. The ship rode the rough waves and on each trough, the mast of the boat following rose like a beacon.
When Dauði Dkellr anchored in the middle of the bay and let down a small rowboat, Dráddør shaded his eyes and squinted. “’Tis Konáll, to be cert.”
“Do my eyes deceive me or is that a woman they are lowering into your brother’s arms?” Tighe peered at the small boat.
Dráddør clamped his dropped jaw tight. “Nay, you have the right of it. ’Tis Nyssa. I cannot believe Konáll set out to journey here with his wife swollen with child. He is as nervous as a nun about the babe and in less than three sennights the channels will freeze. Why would he take such a risk? If ’twere not for King Harald and King Kenneth’s urgent summons, e’en I would have waited until the spring to claim Lathairn and the title.”
“Thanks to your god, Odin, you did not. Néill most cert would have raped Xára and claimed both the title and the lands long before spring.” Tighe laid the bleached branch on a flat boulder and with quick, short flicks carved the outline of a sword.
Dráddør tracked the boat approaching the cove.
“Hail.” The shout echoed around the bay.
Dráddør waved and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Best you disembark in the calm pool to your right.”
The two Vikings rowing the boat changed direction.
Tighe pocketed the small sword he’d carved. Both men walked to the one spot of tranquility in the bay, a tiny alcove where the ocean lapped the rock-strewn sand instead of pounding and thrashing away the beach clinging to the cliff’s base. They watched as Konáll hopped out of the small boat and stood in the knee-deep water to swing Nyssa high against his chest. The grim cant of his mouth spoke volumes.
